Aspects of the disclosure relate to an emergency detection device with wireless alert capabilities and location reporting.
Certain individuals may be vulnerable to emergency medical situations resulting from unexpected falls, fainting, collapse, drops or spikes in blood pressure, oxygen saturation, heart rate, and other health related situations. These individuals include the elderly, medicating patients and other individuals who suffer from heart conditions, epilepsy or other such medical problems.
Devices for detecting falls have been used for some time. Most of these devices are worn by an individual at risk of falling. However, detecting falls can be a complicated problem because data registered during a fall may be affected by noise or may be similar to data generated when the wearer performs certain commonplace actions. Also, because people vary greatly with regards to height, weight and activity level, the data generated when one individual suffers a fall may be significantly different than the data generated by when other people suffer falls. For these reasons, conventional fall detectors are highly susceptible to failures when a fall occurs, as well as false-positive fall detections. In addition, while devices for monitoring a wearer's vital signs have been used, the devices' techniques for notifying emergency personnel that an emergency situation is affecting the wearer are limited. The devices' often rely on wireless signals or other potentially unavailable communication means. In addition, even when an alert is successfully transmitted indicating an emergency situation has occurred, additional information about the emergency affecting the wearer and the wearer's health may not be available. For these reasons, conventional emergency alert devices fail to consistently notify emergency personnel when an emergency affects the wearer. Nor do they provide data sufficient to evaluate the type of emergency that is affecting the user.